April 30
Spring break-up now, the snow soft & thinning into a rhizomatic patchwork of puddle & brown runnel, & the tundra scrub peaking through the black dirt, tired & distended with water. & then come those waning hours of darkness, the stars become fugitive already, the windows covered over in the hope of some small night’s sleep. The bears already roaming at every altitude, the throngs of people already doing the same, & that perfect quiet of our winter opening again unto life & busyness & externality in all of its incarnations. It starts like that, a little bird-call, isolated that way, & then turns to the madrigal & the chorus & then that becomes the familiar ringing in your ear summerlong. There is that attendant hesitation to participate, that part of me that doesn’t want to loosen my grasp on winter & all of its insular comforts. But we are animals, after all, & hibernation gives way to the pulse of things around us. & once the rot